2009 cannot end quickly enough for me. I have spent de past six months struggling with one tech problem after another. Either my phone is dead or my laptop has a virus. Then it's the ISP's phone that goes out of order for 10 days.

But the real problem was a major energy shortage.

Here's the backstory: in this country, for the past 15-20 years, we have seldom had electricity 24/7 outside of the major hollidays: New Year's Day/Independance Day, Carnival, Easter or the World Cup. Don't ask me why, nobody really bothers with the reasons anymore.

Now, you can deal with this situation a number of ways:a) Live with it. Ascetism is good for the soul;b) money is tight (as it is for 90% of the population) so you light the night with candles, kerosene lamps and the moon;c) you have some money and you sink it a few hundred to a few thousand US dollars into an inverter and batteries;d) you're so rich that, between your inverter, your silent generator and your solar panels, you're barely aware that there is a problem to begin with!!!

I went with c) back in 2002, investing all my savings in this system. I still needed city electricity but bye bye lamps and candles. And *gasp* I could sew whenever I wanted.

Except...

Except batteries grow old and stop working. Since this summer, I have only been able to turn on the lights in my house. So one giant knife in the already wavering Mojo.

I hung in there until Christmas and, with my bonus, bought four new batteries.

For those who wonder, an inverter and batteries looks like this:

The batteries are in the yard, the inverter inside the house because the chemical reaction produces dangerous fumes.

But how does it work?

Basically, the city electricity goes through the machine to charge the batteries. when there's a blackout, the batteries power the whole house. Like one big rechargeable battery, actually. Obviously, it all depends on the number of hours of city electricity, the number of batteries and how much electricity you use.